Introduction

The Mercenary Research Suite combines research and education in a unique way.

Some of what makes us different:

We focus on big trades — and the “big bet” style of trading and investing. Our goal is to find the biggest trades and the biggest trends. We practice the art of building large positions over a period of weeks or months, while always maintaining risk control.

We combine price action, fundamentals and sentiment with top down analysis and a “go anywhere” style. The roots of this “old school” style date not just back to the original Market Wizards, but all the way to George Soros and Jesse Livermore. This has been our approach for 20+ years.

We are students of market cycles and financial history, in the style of the old macro titans. Long-term market cycles are like a giant pendulum, one that swings over a period of decades. When the pendulum swings back in the direction of rising interest rates, rising inflation, and rising volatility, huge opportunities will develop. (This could happen soon.)

We intertwine research and trading ideas with methodology and psychology. The Mercenary Research Suite combines research and trading ideas with education and psychology. This allows traders to profit and learn at the same time, for a whole more than the sum of its parts.

Ten Sections and Live Updates

The Mercenary Research Suite is organized into ten sections as shown below.

On the updates page, you’ll see the latest updates and materials each trading day.

We also send out email broadcasts when new analysis or report content is posted.

Strategic Intelligence Report

The Strategic Intelligence Report (SIR) is our flagship research publication. It publishes twice per month on average, for at least twenty-four issues per year.

Each SIR issue — usually six to eight PDF pages — contains the following sections:

The SIR Intermarket View. This section focuses on Livermore style “General Conditions” through a lens of price, interpreting global market signals by combining price action, fundamental data and sentiment. To form the hypotheses and scenarios presented in the Intermarket View, we monitor trends and market relationships across 100+ macro instruments (indices, currencies, commodities, bonds, bellwether equities and ETFs).

The SIR Macro View. This section looks at big picture developments with an impact on market themes and trends. From market risks to monetary policy, from cryptocurrencies to geopolitics, and from industry and sector developments to lessons of history and societal / technological change, the Macro View digs deep in search of big trend drivers.

The SIR Tactical View. This section focuses on positions in the SIR portfolio, upcoming trading ideas, and areas of research and development, along with general insights into position and portfolio management as applied in real time. The Tactical View gives a snapshot of the thinking and strategy that goes into management of the Mercenary portfolio.

The SIR Portfolio. This section contains a rundown of pending new setups, current positions, and recently closed positions, with links to the dated analysis PDFs that describe each position. The dated analysis links create an ability to track a multi-legged position from the initial setup rationale, to each new point of add-on, all the way to present day.

All of the SIR issues (more than 160) are available in the SIR archives.

Skimming the headlines. The story headlines alone contain a valuable amount of information, and the entire document, topically sorted, can be skimmed for headlines in just a few minutes.

Reading the summaries. Each article has a summary that captures the gist of the piece, making it easy to digest the information with a little bit further depth but not much extra time investment.

Clicking through the links or reading in depth. The full story is available by clicking through each link, and it is also possible to dig into a specific area of interest or otherwise pick and choose what to follow up on.

The Macro Links archive is also hugely valuable in that, if you miss a day, or multiple days or even multiple weeks, it is easy to quickly catch up on what happened, again with everything organized by section in an easy-to-navigate way.

Trading Analysis

Trading analysis works in tandem with the Strategic Intelligence Report (SIR).

Broadcasts go out prior to market open, in PDF format, with about a page of length and multiple charts.

Our analysis doesn’t just focus on new ideas or managing existing trades. We also focus on pyramid points to build position size on existing trades.

It is sometimes the case that just a handful of trades in a given year, or even just one or two, wind up providing the vast majority of profits for the year — with multiple points of position add-on along the way.

(It is hard to deliver outstanding trading returns without knowing how to build size in the biggest and best trades — because those trades make all the difference.)

Trading Methodology

The Trading Methodology section explores our methodology and approach, the trading and investing style that was developed and perfected by the old masters — legends like George Soros, Stanley Druckenmiller and Paul Tudor Jones (with roots going back to Jesse Livermore).

Current materials include:

Integrated Macro Analysis. The core basics of the trading and investing style that was perfected by the legendary old masters.

The Market Tower. How we integrate top down and bottom up analysis, and look for opportunities with factors that resonate up and down the Market Tower.

Horizontal and Vertical Exposure. How we think about positioning and exposure levels in a portfolio, with adjustment opportunities both vertically (in terms of trade size) and horizontally (breadth and number of positions).

A General Theory of Risk Points. An explanation of how we think about risk and set risk points on positions, with factors relating to pyramiding and our focus on finding large trades.

Trading Psychology

Trading psychology is where we dig into factors like emotional control and mental state, which can be especially important when markets require vigilance and patience or an ability to handle volatility.

We look at trading psychology not just through a prism of markets, but also by way of human biology and body chemistry and the mind-body system, seeking to understand the mind and body so as to maximize personal performance.

Current Trading Psychology materials include:

The Hunter-Gatherer Connection. A great deal of trading psychology, and human psychology in general, can be better understood by examining the conditions of our formative biological environment, the mismatch between that original environment and modern day society, and implications for the mind-body system.

Overcoming Fight or Flight. One of the first crucial steps in remaking trading psychology is learning to transition away from the natural “fight or flight” mechanisms that all humans have — as a kind of 1.0 factory installation — toward a 2.0 level upgrade of the mind-body system to enable calm under pressure.

Personal Productivity

Our personal productivity focus recognizes that success in markets requires a well-organized and productive life outside of markets also.

Our upcoming additions to personal productivity include methods and approaches for integrating knowledge work with the cloud — a crucial capability in the Information Age — and various ways to enhance speed and efficiency, along with personal wellness best practices.

Current Personal Productivity materials include:

Keys to Trading From Home. Trading from a home office, or a home environment in general, contains many unique challenges relative to what people are used to. The transition can be made easier, and results improved, when these keys are taken into account.

Metaprocess

With foundations a quarter-century old, the Metaprocess methodology evolved over many years, via real-time application and day-to-day testing under high-performance, high-pressure real world conditions.

This “mental martial art” can be applied on a daily basis in pursuit of superior performance across seven areas we identify as critical: Vigilance, Passion, Discipline, Courage, Focus, Transcendence, and Detachment.

Current Metaprocess materials include:

The Core Mantras and Acronyms of Metaprocess. As a “mental martial art” Metaprocess is chiefly concerned with the development of mental models, thought patterns and habits, and the replacement of old habits with new ones in the name of achieving superhuman performance. The core mantras and acronyms are instrumental to this process, creating the ability to apply Linguistic Performance Management (LPM) on a daily basis.

Theory and Models

Our theory and models section takes intriguing and powerful concepts relating to trading, probability, human competition, and other areas of interest, and breaks them down into digestible pieces for greater understanding and multi-disciplinary application. This adds to general knowledge, and also to trading capability, as one’s foundation of knowledge and mental models expands.

Current Theory and Models materials include:

The Boydian Framework. Colonel John Boyd, one of the greatest fighter pilots of the 20th century, was also one of the greatest military strategists of all time. His ideas on combat, particularly relating to visibility, maneuverability and tempo, have deep application to trading. “The Boydian Framework” is our template for applying Boyd’s lessons to trading, and to the art of trading as a form of combat (via constant competition with other humans).

The Risk-Adjusted Profit Theorem (RAPT). High stakes poker is an excellent teacher in terms of odds, probability and emotional control. Our years of high stakes poker experience brought about the Risk-Adjusted Profit Theorem (RAPT) — a sophisticated yet simple tool that can be used to clarify assessment of reward-versus-risk decisions large or small.

Special Reports

Our Special Reports section, still under development, will include accumulated research roundups and deep dive looks into specific industries, sectors or stock groups. In the meantime, current Special Reports materials include:

Building Wealth With B-52 Stocks. One of the most lucrative endeavors in markets is also one of the hardest — generating large returns on large volumes of capital. Crack that nut, and you can build serious wealth. One of the best ways to do it is via “B-52 Stocks.” This report explains how and why.

Profit From Short Selling With Icarus Stocks. When a high-flying growth stock falls from grace, the downtrend can be brutal (and irreversible). Learning to identify these “Icarus Stocks” in advance serves two purposes: Highlighting attractive short candidates, and learning “when to sell” on the long side of the portfolio.

Premium Reports

The Mercenary Trading Quotes Library. At more than 120 pages, this is one of the most comprehensive trading quote libraries ever assembled. It also covers broad topics like inspiration, perseverance, excellence, life practices, adaptability, wisdom, and more.

Hand-Selected Quotes from Reminiscences of a Stock Operator. Widely considered the best trading book of all time — and still as relevant today as the day it was published in 1923 — this report contains seventeen pages of selected Reminiscences of a Stock Operator quotes, for a quick and condensed dose of pure Jesse Livermore.

OPM 101: The Mercenary Hedge Fund Startup Guide. If you are truly a successful trader — or on your way to becoming one — the best way to leverage your skill could be starting a hedge fund. Our “OPM 101” guide takes you through all the hedge fund startup basics, from fund structures, to offshore entities, to capital raising, client marketing, administrative requirements, and more.

Interview With a Trading Legend. Peter Brandt, author of Diary of a Professional Commodity Trader, may be the greatest trader you’ve never heard of. We consider him a legend thanks to his stunning performance – a thirty-year track record (audited) of 41.6% compound returns. In this in-depth “Market Wizards” style interview, you’ll find out all about how Peter got started in trading… how he handled his early “going bust” experiences… the first big move that really put him in business as a trader… his experience with the legendary Commodities Corp… his views on risk management… how he handles adversity… how he grades himself… and much more.

The Deep Alpha Interview. Deep Alpha is the code name for a female trader (still notable in the male-dominated trading world) with multiple decades of experience in markets. Having transitioned from floor trader to day trader to hedge fund manager, DA is now spreading her wings in the discreet world of family office management — hence the code name for this interview — where capital allocation runs into the hundreds of millions to billions.

Low-Risk Special Offer (400 Subscribers Only)

Our community of longtime subscribers includes traders, analysts and money managers from some of the top investment banks and hedge funds in the world — names like Citadel, Tudor, Bridgewater and Goldman Sachs.

Yet we only charge $700 per year for our research and performance materials — though we could charge much more (and have been told we should).

Why keep it low? Because we aspire to build a global community of master traders.

We want our material accessible to as many traders and investors as possible, in as many countries around the world as possible.

Also, if the next young Livermore or Soros is out there somewhere, still strapped and living on a modest budget… we don’t want to shut that person out.

We want to be a part of their journey… and possibly back their first hedge fund.

And now, for a limited time — in honor of our 2018 relaunch and restructuring — we are offering TWO YEARS FOR THE PRICE OF ONE.

That means you get:

TWO YEARS of the Mercenary Research Suite for just $700. That is twenty-four months of access at the twelve-month price. This includes all of the material described above — and the daily Macro Links, and twice-monthly Strategic Intelligence Reports, and real-time trading analysis broadcasts emailed prior to market open — and all the new material and reports that are added to the various sections (with new reports constantly under development).

What could make this even better? How about a 14-Day Money Back Guarantee.

If you aren’t satisfied in the first two weeks, we’ll give you a refund. You’ll have twenty-four months to see how our unique research and methodology and performance tools can potentially deliver a 10X, 100X or even 1,000X return on your modest investment.

But if you decide in the first 14 days the Mercenary Research Suite is not for you, just let us know why. We will refund your purchase, minus a 4 percent processing fee.

The potential reward here is life-changing… with a risk of $28. Talk about upside!

This offer is for 400 new subscribers only and will close when capacity is filled.